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- What attributes of God’s character does this passage reveal?
- How does the passage point to Jesus?
- How should the truth of this passage change me?
- How do the events of today’s reading help you better understand the grand narrative of Scripture?
Lev. 13
As I was reading through the laws concerning skin diseases this morning, I couldn’t help but think of Jesus’ instructions to His body of believers. The apostles later passed on this teaching to the various churches. To paraphrase this teaching, if a believer sins against you, go talk to him. If he won’t listen, take one or two others with you and try again. If that doesn’t work, tell the church, and if he won’t listen to the church, you should consider him an outsider. This process is very similar to what I see going on with the skin diseases.
When someone got a skin disease, there was a discernment process that took place to see if the infection was more than skin deep. If it was, they cast the person outside the camp. So it is with the sinner in the church. As believers, we still fall into sin, whether by mistake or a momentary lapse of judgment. Such sins are only skin deep, though. If God’s Spirit is alive and well in us, confrontation regarding our sin should compel us to humble repentance. But a consistent refusal to acknowledge our wrongdoing indicates something deeper. A heart that is defiant toward God cannot also be devoted to Him. Such a person has a serious sin disease and should not be considered part of God’s holy assembly.
Lev. 14
I don’t know how the Israelites were to treat those banished from their camp due to a serious skin disease. It does not seem to me, however, that God intended for these people to be ignored and forgotten. If that was the case, why would He lay out a process for their cleansing? It is the same for those with a serious sin disease. Jesus made it quite clear that we are to love and minister to those outside His body of believers. He came to seek and to save the lost and to commission us to do the same. God always leaves a path for restoration and it is our job to point outsiders to that path.
I find it very interesting that the ritual for cleansing someone with a healed skin disease is essentially the same as that for consecrating a priest. That tells me a little something about those of us who have been cleansed from our sin disease. Jesus doesn’t just cleanse us from our sin. He also consecrates us to serve God as priests in His kingdom.
Lev. 15
This chapter made me think of the woman written of in the Gospels who had suffered from bleeding for twelve years. That poor woman was unclean every day of her life for twelve whole years! How do you live like that? If anybody touches you or anything you sat on, they become unclean as well. So what do you do? Do you walk around telling everybody you are unclean because you are bleeding? Or do you stay silent and carry the responsibility of defiling others without them knowing it? I can see where her situation very likely led her to a life of solitude. Even worse than that is that she would have been forbidden from coming into the presence of the LORD that entire time.
Thank God that Jesus changed all of that. Because of Him we can all do as that woman did. We can come as we are to Jesus, who heals us. Then we can not only come into God’s presence, but we can remain there as His beloved children. And nobody can call impure what God has made clean (see Acts 10:15).